Main menu

Monthly Archives: July 2004

Post navigation

This is kind of cool. Too bad the phone number only works in the states. I’m not going to pay long distance just so you kids can listen to me bitch and moan rather than reading it.

I find that I’m posting a lot more often on this blog because I have this little link in my browser now to ‘Blog This!’ It pops open a little window with a little mini form to post from.

This whole blogging thing–especially now that I’ve moved over here to blogger–has gotten me thinking about the power of technology and communication and communications technology. It’s cool shit. I think I’d like to work on getting my blog more exposed. There are like four of you who regularly read this and that’s all well and good, but I’d like to think that what I’m saying might be important to other people too. I guess it’d be like being a mini-celebrity.

The above quote is from Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city official to be elected in the US. On the eve of pride weekend, I thought I’d just toss a few quotes by him. Just ’cause I’m that kind of guy.

In November 1978, the Briggs Initiative was defeated in California in a referendum. It would have barred homosexuals from teaching in California public schools. In thanking the straight allies that the gay community had gained in the fight against the initiative, Harvey Milk said,

‘We owe them to continue the education campaign that took place. We must destroy the myths once and for all, shatter them. We must continue to speak out. Most importantly, every single gay person must come out […]. [O]nce they realise that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, then every myth, every lie and innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.’

I just finished watching Kerry’s acceptance speech to the DNC. I fell asleep watching it last night. Not the best speaker in the world–which isn’t to say that Bush is an amazing orator either. But it was fairly good.

What I find interesting is that after he finished, they started playing ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2, a song which mentions oil fields and ‘tuna fleets clearing the sea out’. Of course, they didn’t play that part. At least, not in the clip that I was watching of the speech. They seemed to cut that part out all together.

Just thought I’d share.

In other news, what’s with my roommates all having normal jobs all of a sudden and fighting over the shower in the morning?

Part of me wishes I were in Boston this week for the Democratic National Convention. I think if I were still living in the states, that I’d be fairly politically active. As it is, I’ve been reading lots and watching lots of recaps and speech streams on C-SPAN. I just watched the speech from last night by Barak Obama, a state senator in Illinois who is running for one of that state’s US Senate seats. I’ve excerpted below the last few paragraphs of his speech. You all know that I’m not a flag-waver and that I’m certainly not thrilled with the state of the union at the moment, but it’s speeches like these–yes, I realise that a lot of it is lofty campaign rhetoric–that give me hope for the future.

—

John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief-I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper-that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one.

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America-there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism here-the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that there are better days ahead. I believe we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us. America!

Tonight, if you feel the same energy I do, the same urgency I do, the same passion I do, the same hopefulness I do-if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as president, and John Edwards will be sworn in as vice president, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come. Thank you and God bless you.

I’ve decided that my ramblings aren’t worth posting but can be summed up in this one comment: ‘Oh, and to top it all off, Centrum now has a “Low Carb” blend with extra bits of different vitamins to help people’s bodies cope with being deprived of the carbohydrates it needs.’

Another new template. Simple. Stylish. And orange, like my first iBook. Comments and post titles have returned. Now I just have to read through my ramblings from my trip south of the border to see if they make any sense and are worth posting.